If
maintenance
tasks can be scheduled when no one is using the server, you can write
a simple
PerlAccessHandler that will
automatically disable the server and return a page stating that the
server is under maintenance and will be back online at a specified
time. When using this approach, you don't need to
worry about fiddling with the server configuration when the
maintenance hour comes. However, all maintenance must be completed
within the given time frame, because once the time is up, the service
will resume.

The Apache::DayLimit module from http://www.modperl.com/ is a good example of
such a module. It provides options for specifying which day server
maintenance occurs. For example, if Sundays are used for maintenance,
the configuration for Apache::DayLimit is as
follows: